Nobody is saying its not more beneficial than regular dots, its saying in a simulation/in game the DPS gain of it cannot be accurately predetermined because of factors like that and the randomness of when the proc will appear. The fact on whether it begins to outweigh the passive stats of other options is whats up in the air.

So no... its not that simple.

First, the trinket has passive intellect on it, so I assume you mean does the proc outweigh the proc of other trinkets? All that randomness/bad timing that you described above negatively effects normal proc trinkets as well. If you get an 8k intellect proc while you are moving and outside of eclipse, it lowers the gain you would normally see during the proc. If you get the intellect proc just after applying both dots, if you reapply dots those GCDs get wasted. 4 seconds is plenty of time to get into an eclipse and get an Eclipsed dot rolling (it might even be worth using AC over Starfire to ensure this if going from Lunar --> Solar).

If your point is, the trinket is very messy to math out the DPS gain because so many factors can effect it, then I agree. But it doesn't really matter. Just using logical common sense there's no situation where the LFR version of the trinket wouldn't be better than any other trinket available.

If your point is, the trinket is very messy to math out the DPS gain because so many factors can effect it, then I agree. But it doesn't really matter. Just using logical common sense there's no situation where the LFR version of the trinket wouldn't be better than any other trinket available.

Common sense would be to do the math and actually check out how it does. Not immediately assuming that it will be best based on your gut feeling.

I'm fine with it being the best option if it actually is that, but i'm definitely not fine with people just saying it is and giving nothing to back that up.

Common sense would be to do the math and actually check out how it does. Not immediately assuming that it will be best based on your gut feeling.

I'm fine with it being the best option if it actually is that, but i'm definitely not fine with people just saying it is and giving nothing to back that up.

Do you need someone to do the math to show you it's not smart to drive 200 miles per hour? There is something to common sense. There's a difference between gut feeling and common sense.

Quick math anyway: About 100k extra damage per dot with 100% crit chance for the duration so 200k total. If you get 5 procs during a 10min fight that's 1666 DPS gained just from the extra dot damage alone, ignoring starsurges.

Only problem with that is tier cant be Thunderforged. Chances are we will want our offset to be Thunderforged something-rather, could be a different chest. Maybe the gloves. Regardless it might be good to have a 5/5 Balance set so once something Thunderforged does drop it wont mess up any 4p bonus.

Quick math anyway: About 100k extra damage per dot with 100% crit chance for the duration so 200k total. If you get 5 procs during a 10min fight that's 1666 DPS gained just from the extra dot damage alone, ignoring starsurges.

If we take Slippykin's value of ~5.5 DPS per int, that's actually less than 1/4 of what the int trinkets do.

If we take Slippykin's value of ~5.5 DPS per int, that's actually less than 1/4 of what the int trinkets do.

I'm assuming you are looking at Cha Ye's which would be 5.5 * 7333 / 6 = 6700. Except that is using a 100% proc chance, which is not correct. Then you have to factor in that Lei Shen's has static int which none of the int trinkets have + the extra DPS from the Starsurges.

I'm assuming you are looking at Cha Ye's which would be 5.5 * 7333 / 6 = 6700. Except that is using a 100% proc chance, which is not correct. Then you have to factor in that Lei Shen's has static int which none of the int trinkets have + the extra DPS from the Starsurges.

Cha-Ye's procs 0.77*(1+crit%)*(1+haste%) times per minute. At my current stats, that's already well over 1 PPM. In the tentative BIS, that's well over 1.25 PPM. So it's closer to 8400 DPS.

A 100% proc chance would have it as 7333 static int after the first cast, since it has no ICD.

Cha-Ye's procs 0.77*(1+crit%)*(1+haste%) times per minute. At my current stats, that's already well over 1 PPM. In the tentative BIS, that's well over 1.25 PPM. So it's closer to 8400 DPS.

A 100% proc chance would have it as 7333 static int after the first cast, since it has no ICD.

Again like I said, there is something to common sense. If the trinket were 100% crit chance for 20 seconds with like 10 PPM would you still need to see the math to know that it's better? As long as you realize how Balance Druids work (which I'm assuming you do), all you have to do is use your brain a tiny bit to realize how strong it is. My guess is your descendants were one of the last people to concede the Earth was round.

with the option to take a trees/hotw build that crit trinket is going to be fairly easy to line up with cooldowns just wait for it to proc to pop CA and yolo its going to be bis i dont think theres any arguing with that. any eclipse energy you might lose by popping CA at non-standard times will be made up for 10 fold with chained starsurges.

something to keep in mind, with travel time, you'll probably want to weave in wraths and not traditional starfires during this super-crit CA. positioning close to the boss will be important too. i'll probably stack with melee on any fight that doesnt have an "X bad thing targets Y ranged guy" mechanic.

also, slippy, you seem to be really fast with wrath calcs and the nuiances of dps sims elude me... would you mind running it with the new talent changes and current tier gear? curious if the 9% nuke buffs outweigh the NV nerf in terms of our current dps. intuitively it seems like a wash, if not very slightly net positive. i wouldn't mind seeing a little math on it though

Of course not. But it is not a guaranteed 100% crit all the time, so i'd like to see some math first.

The question isn't "is it strong", it is "is it stronger than the others".

Hamlet's first attempt to model Lei Shen's has been added to WC. Currently the LFR version of Lei Shen's comes in 2k dps higher than heroic Cha-Ye's, the trinket you thought would beat everything to a pulp.

Not saying his math is perfect obviously, but this isn't the least bit surprising to me.

also, slippy, you seem to be really fast with wrath calcs and the nuiances of dps sims elude me... would you mind running it with the new talent changes and current tier gear? curious if the 9% nuke buffs outweigh the NV nerf in terms of our current dps. intuitively it seems like a wash, if not very slightly net positive. i wouldn't mind seeing a little math on it though

the 9% buff greatly outweighs any changes to NV the "nerf" really wasnt really that bad to begin with

Alright, so with the new version of WrathCalcs, I've started playing around with a number of things.

1. Trinkets

First off, with T15H BiS gear it's pretty much impossible to get under the hit cap by normal means, and Wushoolay's just makes this struggle harder. The best I could get was 770 over hit cap with that trinket equipped - that amount of secondary stat wastage really makes this trinket suffer.

Next up: Cha-Ye's Essence of Brilliance and Breath of the Hydra. Both don't interact with the hit cap, so that's a good start. With Cha-Ye's equipped, WrathCalcs currently shows (before I fiddle with other things) 174139.72, and with Hydra it spits out 174568.42. What's important to note, however, is that a haste -> crit reforge on Hydra is a dps loss. Now, I know we had this big issue during 5.1 on "haste vs. crit" builds, so I wont draw any conclusions right now. All I'm saying is that, preliminarily, a marginal increase in haste results in a higher DPS increase than a marginal increase in crit.

Finally, we look at Unerring Vision of Lei-Shen. This trinket looks to be around 3k DPS higher than either of the alternatives, and as Hamlet said on the EJ thread, even the LFR version of Unerring Vision tops both heroic options. Big trinket, think of it as an awesome powered-up version of the DMF card that every boomkin will need in their arsenal. One of the only trinkets in the game that modify a class' rotation/priority system.

2. 10289 Haste Breakpoint

Since haste is being valued quite significantly above crit at these levels, and the Unerring trinket will absolutely be affected by an additional dot tick, it's important to have another look at the highest breakpoint we can achieve (this tier). The breakpoint is worth around 1400 DPS itself, and the marginal values of haste and crit before the breakpoint is 3.26 and 3.16, respectively. What is odd, is that once haste reaches 10296 (7 over the breakpoint), its marginal value drops to 2.35 and stays there for more than 10000 additional haste. I'm not sure what happens at this specific point (Hamlet/Tec might), but it seems once you reach that point, crit is far superior from then onwards. Thus, the most optimal reforging/gemming may be hitting the breakpoint then dumping extra stats into crit. This is what we did in 5.1, even though it caused a lot of dissent in the boomchicken community. However, since Unerring does gain efficiency with the haste breakpoint, and we aren't overvaluing it by using DoC, it may be more generally accepted. This is assuming, however, that these numbers stay the way they are. Which brings me to my final point.

3. Cooldowns/Talents

I know quite a few chickens have been excited at the possibilities of using treants instead of juggling cooldowns, and this is perpetuated by the NV nerfs (though it is only a slight nerf, now that it does not synergise with Incarnation 50% of the time it's another hassle to worry about). Before I get into numbers, I want to point out the benefits and shortcomings of the two "real" L60 talent options: Incarnation and Force of Nature.

Force of Nature provides a cooldown that we used to have at our disposal baseline. As far as I know, the treants scale with our haste and intellect, and would thus also benefit from HotW and Bloodlust. The most obvious and disheartening shortcoming of FoN is that it does not scale with multiple targets. Whether you're fighting 1 mob or a plethora, treants will do the same amount of damage. This is a major problem for treants, as it means for a lot of the fights in Throne of Thunder, it just can't compete. Single-target fights will still be fine with treants, and would actually be more beneficial on movement fights if they don't move with you (I'm not sure about that one) compared with Incarnation.

Incarnation, on the other hand, is something we've been using for all of 5.1 as our go-to L60 talent. Incarnation stacks with any buff you receive, as it's just a damage mod. Incarnation does scale with multiple targets, and scales multiplicatively with damage mod fights like Elegon. Incarnation synergises well with HotW, just like trees, but does lose part of its awesomeness because it must be aligned with the top of a Lunar eclipse, which can mean losing a cooldown over a boss fight. Overall, Incarnation is still a strong talent.

Now, to numbers. With the T15H BiS list I've modified with the preceding information, DPS with FoN is 176731.87, whereas DPS with Incarnation is 176775.87. According to WrathCalcs, Incarnation is a meagre 44 DPS higher than FoN, but do remember Incarnation will scale with things FoN does not. I realise FoN may not be properly modelled in WrathCalcs yet, but it's definitely more accurate than it was before. At this point in time, I would be much more inclined to pick up Incarnation over FoN, as it should prove to be more effective and higher DPS overall when boss mechanics are considered.

Also, the reason I'm not comparing the L90 talents at this point in time is twofold: firstly, because of 5.1 movement and multiple-target fights, DoC was overvalued in WrathCalcs like it is currently, and practically it would not be the best option, and secondly, NV is significantly below HotW and would really only be useful on an Elegon-style damage mod fight. Since it has a 1.5 minute cooldown now, it will also be troublesome to align it with Incarnation each time it's up if the second pressing of the cooldown were to be delayed longer than 7 seconds, either by movement or mechanics.

Anyway, long-winded post, but I'll be updating the OP with the changes I've made in WrathCalcs. If you have any questions about what I've posted, don't hesitate to ask.

Isn't Lei-Shen's Orb of Command 900int, 670crit, 518haste, RED socket, bonus socket 60 int
Above the Hydra Fetish ? It has more crit, haste over hit since we have too much on stuff, and a red socket with a 80int 160crit (againt 160crit 160spirit) and the same bonus of 60 int.

EDIT : The same with the Cloack, Ra Den loots another cloack ; Red Sky Cloudcloack (ID :95014), same stats but Hit and Haste on it against Spirit Mastery.
And Against that there is the Deadly Glare Cape (ID :96485) witch has Crit and Haste on it, it has lesser int but there is the passive 60int bonus socket.

Isn't Lei-Shen's Orb of Command 900int, 670crit, 518haste, RED socket, bonus socket 60 int
Above the Hydra Fetish ? It has more crit, haste over hit since we have too much on stuff, and a red socket with a 80int 160crit (againt 160crit 160spirit) and the same bonus of 60 int.

EDIT : The same with the Cloack, Ra Den loots another cloack ; Red Sky Cloudcloack (ID :95014), same stats but Hit and Haste on it against Spirit Mastery.
And Against that there is the Deadly Glare Cape (ID :96485) witch has Crit and Haste on it, it has lesser int but there is the passive 60int bonus socket.

They must be very close but doesn't the 1693-915=778 crit outweight the 261 int loss and the 654 mastery ?

Swapping in Lei-Shen's Orb of Command results in ~200 DPS loss. We do have some wriggle-room with hit, so having it on our off-hand doesn't screw around with our breakpoints/crit value much. The cloak we currently have on is a Thunderforged version, so the additional ilvls make it better than the alternatives - I'm not sure if everything can be Thunderforged, but at the moment wowdb and wowhead don't have other Thunderforged items available, so we're sticking with what's up currently.

To compare the two chest pieces, you'll need to add in the gems and reforges. Shoving the Resto T15H piece into WrathCalcs, it spits out a 877 DPS loss, best case scenario.

Let's convert each of these stats into their DPS equivalent. Crit, haste and spirit have been lumped into the same category because haste and spirit are only used until their respective caps are achieved, and the rest goes into crit. Thus, the extra C/H/S is given the DPS equivalent of a point of crit.

At T15H BiS levels, Int = 6.40, Crit = 3.42, Mastery = 3.11. Therefore, the comparison will be 261x6.4 + 654x3.11 vs. 872x3.42, which is 3704.32 vs. 2982.24. Subtracting these values results in 722.08 DPS, which is very close to the 877 DPS number I referenced earlier - the numbers wont be the same because I've used marginal stat changes, and these values will change as you add more of each stat.

Thanks for clearing me up !
But the Red Sky Cloudcloack is thunderforged too ! It's ID is 95014
Ra Den Drops two TF cloacks, the one with spirit mastery, and the other with hit haste.
But as you said before, after the haste cap, haste devalues, the only way that Red Sky Cloudcloack would be better is with some reforges, but it won't change much.